Is This China’s Global Leadership Moment?

A pandemic is no time to tout the superiority of any country’s governance system or approach, let alone compete for global dominance. Instead of congratulating itself on having pushed back COVID-19, China should quietly win trust by helping the United States and other countries, not out of strategic interest, but on moral grounds.

BEIJING – When he welcomed US President Donald Trump to Beijing’s Forbidden City in 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed to the character “peace” in the names of all three halls of the great complex, emphasizing the Confucian maxim “Peace is prized above all.”

The world needs to adhere to that idea now more than ever, but its two leading powers are at loggerheads at the worst possible time. Anti-Chinese sentiment permeates American society, and a popular saying in China these days is that if you are not angry at America, you are not patriotic.

Sino-American tensions have become so severe that it can seem as if only an attack on Earth by extra-terrestrials could ease them. Seen from this perspective, perhaps we ought to regard the COVID-19 pandemic as the attack we need. Rather than continuing to engage in a blame game and finger-pointing, which accomplish nothing, China and the United States should be collaborating to find a vaccine or a cure.

The COVID-19 crisis offers both countries a possible path from recrimination to reconciliation. In particular, the pandemic gives China a rare opportunity to address its strategic dilemmas as a rising power, above all its struggle to win the trust of the US and other leading powers. Through actions rather than words, China’s leaders can rebuild the country’s international image on the basis of a moral imperative rather than geopolitical interests.

The world suddenly finds itself mired in a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a liquidity crisis. As a result, many economies are facing the prospect of a downturn on the scale of the Great Depression of the 1930s, rather than the Great Recession of 2009.

One central lesson from the Great Depression is that rich-country governments sparked global protectionism with measures such as the US Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and Britain’s Abnormal Importations Act, which contributed to the sharp slowdown in trade and capital movements. In fact, such “every country for itself” policies are invariably the ultimate culprit behind any global economic crisis.

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Every major global crisis of the last 20 years has been an opportunity for China to strengthen its diplomatic relationships.

US Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both labeled China as America’s chief rival and competitor. But in each case, China managed to turn the situation around – first by collaborating on anti-terrorism programs following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, and then by helping to stimulate global demand and calm financial markets in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Similarly, during the eurozone debt crisis, China strengthened its ties with Europe by purchasing Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish bonds. It also boosted imports from Europe and increased investments there.

By helping to lead the global response to the COVID-19 crisis, China can turn its defensive, reactive stance toward the US into a more open, proactive one. Fortunately, China’s leaders understand both the challenge and the opportunity before them.

For starters, the US has limited capacity to produce the swabs, ventilators, face masks, and protective gear that its hospitals need. China should therefore offer to send supplies and equipment, and share its data and clinical experiences regarding COVID-19. In addition, China should guarantee the continued operation of its medical supply chains and resist any temptation to cut off exports of essential inputs such as pharmaceuticals and vitamins to the US, as some Chinese have suggested.

Second, China can be an anchor for global demand and a source of critical supplies, because Chinese businesses are now springing back to life as the country prepares to exit its lockdown. By stabilizing global supply chains and helping to maintain the flow of goods wherever it can, China can quietly refute the “decoupling” narrative that has begun to take hold.

Such efforts are particularly important at a time when COVID-19 threatens the consummation of the recent China-US “phase one” trade deal. Although China pledged as part of the agreement to buy $12.8 billion worth of US services in 2020, tourism was meant to account for much of that.

Moreover, demand for certain goods will not be met from China, while some other goods will not be produced in America, leading to shortages. The pandemic thus gives both countries a convenient excuse to hold off on further tariff hikes and give each other some breathing space.

Third, China should provide financial assistance to developing countries, which typically are left in the lurch during global economic downturns. The International Monetary Fund lacks the resources to be a major lender or liquidity provider, while the world’s leading central banks offer swap facilities mostly to one another. It was the People’s Bank of China that provided rescue packages and took on credit risk to help Portugal, Argentina, and Egypt during their respective financial crises.

Finally, as China’s leaders seize this opportunity to revive relations with the US, private actors in both countries also are working together. US and Chinese medical companies are cooperating to produce and distribute COVID-19 test kits. And Harvard University scientists will collaborate with Chinese researchers – including Zhong Nanshan, the renowned epidemiologist who first identified the SARS virus – in a five-year, $115 million coronavirus research program funded by a Chinese real-estate company.

If there is one lesson that China should share with the world, it is that speed, transparency, accuracy, and scientific reliability are of the utmost importance when communicating about the COVID-19 crisis. A pandemic is no time to tout the superiority of any country’s governance system or approach, let alone compete for global dominance. China should quietly win trust by helping the US and other countries, not out of strategic interest, but on moral grounds.

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Almost feel sorry for this author. The article was an appeal to China to step away from promoting its own model and/or seek strategic advantage in this crisis. Instead, it stirred an hornet's nest already seething with different underlying resentments. The most common thread, if one can be found, is the existential rejection of China's government and politics. By carrying this pathological loathing of the term "Chinese Communist Party", any reasonable discourse becomes difficult. Instead of focusing on the topics, one falls back on historical grievances, such as the Chinese civil war, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and other "crimes against humanity". Am surprised no one mentioned Tiananmen. To be sure, some commentators try to wrap their distaste in a veneer of sympathy for the Chinese people. They may even believe the poor common man in China is slavering under the goose step of their communist overlords, and therefore take care to separate their disdain for the CCP and the great Chinese people/great Chinese culture.

To those who are haters of Chinese or China or anything in between (and you are perfectly entitled to do so, this writer lived happily for many years in an environment where my hosts loved France except for the French), the assumption is you at least want to be constructive. You have to decide, do you want China to engage the world or disengage? Yes, China is the world's factory but it did not send its gunboats around the world to force people to buy its goods. Elsewhere on PS, excellent articles have been written by contributors about how the current global economic model is passe because of over-reliance on China in the supply chain, while acknowledging it was the capitalists in US and Europe who created this model. To these friends in the West who think liberal democracy is the end of history, please go out and exercise your vote! Vote to deconstruct the corporate lobbying system, vote to ban super PACs, vote for crippling penalties on corporate outsourcing, vote for science-based government, vote to stick it to the man! Surely you have the power, and every four years to boot! Moreover, each one of you is not only a voter but also an ethical conscientious consumer, one assumes. Only buy stuff made in your own country. If that is not available, go without or go picketing. Or demonstrate or occupy whichever street takes your fancy. You have the power.

But we digress, this was originally about COVID 19. Let us take a look at the known information.

On 30 December 2019, Dr. Li Wenliang circulated to his private Wechat group, comprising his medical school classmates, his concerns about SARs re-emerging, based on a report from Dr. Ai Fen, director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central hospital (see his original screenshots at http://www.bjnews.com.cn/feature/2020/01/31/682076.html).

On 31 December 2019, China reported to WHO China Country Office cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/events-as-they-happen).

On 5 January 2020, WHO publishes DNO based on information from China. It reports on the number of cases in China and also identifies contact tracing as one of the measures being used to address the spread. This is only done under suspicions of human-to-human transmission (https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/).

On 10 January 2020, WHO warns global specialists in technical papers about the risk of human-to-human transmission and urged precautionary measures used in cases of human-to-human transmission, even though initial Chinese studies at that point had found no clear evidence. WHO made the warnings based on the experience of earlier coronavirus outbreaks, such as SARS and MERS (https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/08-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19)

On 12 January 2020, China made the first novel coronavirus genome sequence available to the world (https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/）which made it possible to create testing kits.

Less than a week ensued between the late Dr. Li's warnings and China telling the world it was doing contact tracing. With hindsight of course, we are all experts. Without clear data at that point whether this was SARS (Dr. Li and Dr. Ai thought it was SARS, they were wrong) or a mutant variant, what else could China have done except report to WHO, which published the warning of an unknown pneumonia on 31 December. Perhaps some commentators were incensed that China "hid" or "lied" about the numbers of deaths. There were talks of urgent urn deliveries and overworked crematoriums being used to "verify" the exponentially higher numbers of deaths. But gentle readers, we are civilized beings, do we need to believe in or see massive death tolls in China to jolt oneself to act? Or wanted the Chinese government to acknowledge pictures of mass graves (later shown to be fake) as part of an elaborate reality show? Are we reduced to Romans baying for blood in the Coliseum to make meaning of things?

If 5 January or even 10 January is a credible first warning to knowledgeable professionals, the question is whether these knowledgeable professionals did anything or whether they should have done anything or they did say something and those in power ignored them. On this topic the jury is still out; history is still being written. The echo chambers of the West are still sounding discordantly between cries of "loyal" and "disloyal" media, much less "fake news". This writer is in no rush to reach any conclusion; our thoughts and prayers are with the stricken and those still living in the shadow of this invisible threat.

One last thing (I do so miss the master Steve), to those who cannot resist a cheap parting shot, that China created the conditions for the virus to evolve because of wet markets, etc, "the science said so" - beware what you ask for. I refer you to this article released by Cambridge University (https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins). Using the same genetic typing that proved homo sapiens came out of Africa, these scientists showed that COVID 19 came in three variants, Types A, B and C. Type A was the original human virus and closest to the one found in bats. Types B and C were derivatives. Take a guess as to where Type A was found? Not Wuhan, not China, not East Asia. We quote "Mutated versions of ‘A’ were seen in Americans reported to have lived in Wuhan, and a large number of A-type viruses were found in patients from the US and Australia." Type B was the Wuhan strain and found across China and much of East Asia. Type C was found mainly in Europe.

In fan-fiction, there is canon and then there is head-canon. I leave it to you, esteemed readers, which version you prefer.

In China when you write your address you first write country then state then county then city then street number then apartment then family name then first name.In the USA you write your first name then family name and in sequence the exact opposite with country being last.In China the country (all the Chinese people) is the most important concept of community and the individual comes last after the family name. In America the individual comes first and country (All the American people) comes last.In China this is the Confucian concept of filial piety.The Chinese tradition requires all Chinese to treasure the good of the community over their individual aspirations.The Communist Party has around 100,000,000 members. Each one member is part of a family group that has at least 7 members of a family( 2 sets of grandparents, one set of parents and a kid) That means in this simplistic mind experiment over 700 million people are directly related to the Party. Then there are the extended families, government employees, retirees and SOE employees which would count up to over a billion people.So as you can see the Party is the people and the people are the Party.In a sense it is not gerrymandered democracy protecting the vested interests of the donor/lobbyist class like the USA but family representation on a national scale. The Chinese people value social harmony over everything else. This is the social contract they have with their system of Governance. You give us harmony and opportunity and we expect you to quash any violations of the social contract to keep the peace. So if y'all think for one New York minute that attacking China is endearing the Chinese people you are sadly mistaken. When you attack the Party you attack the 1.4 billion individual Chinese people who as consumers are now the world's largest retail market by far.China's sovereign wealth fund was being tutored by Ackman and shorted the market two months ago. So who owns who owns who owns who???

I don't blame China for initially underplaying the crisis. Most Western countries did the same. If the crisis had started in the US we might be in a worse position now: China's experience with SARS more than made up for the harm caused by CCP censorship.

However, I don't see any Chinese leadership in this question. China's aggressive egoism - that we already know from the armed fishing boats in the South Chinese Sea - is now also visible in its handling of corona crisis. China is the factory of the world. Leadership would mean that it would pronounce itself responsible for supplying the world with adequate face masks, tests and other equipment. Instead we see the same power abuse where every Chinese shipment is presented as a favor.

China is making enemies now, not friends. And the main culprit is not Trump but China's leadership.

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Forward-thinking Chinese Leaders have swiftly responded to controversy and criticism falsely laid at their feet. Effective October 2019, the city formerly known as Wuhan has been renamed Chicago. Hubai has also been updated to Orange County. Henceforth, all mentions of the source of COVID-19 shall be expected to refer to it as the Chicago Virus, which has caused major harm to the entirety of Orange County. That is all.

Thank you for a thought provoking article. China clearly has a trust issue with Western leadership. Also as you state in your article there is "patriotic anger" toward the U.S. in China. Only when we deal with the sources of those divides will positive options become available. American resentments stem from asymmetrical business development- Americans getting the benefit of lower cost goods, with wealthy Americans (Bloomberg types) getting rich, at the expense of our manufacturing base and a way of way for many Americans. There is hypocrisy in this sentiment. However the biggest source and perhaps more lasting source is the handling of the Corona virus in the initial stage. Can China overcome its lack of transparency and authoritarian approach to its people? I'd be curious as to sources of "patriotic anger" beyond CCP directed anger. Is it directed toward the American people, our way of life, or is the narrative about the government or current administration? Thank You.

Great comment and question at the end! My view (from Hong Kong) is that it is CCP directed anger, with a narrative focused on the US government (current admin in particular. Too easy, I'm afraid), "imperialism" (real or perceived) and "100 years of shame".

There is absolutely no anger towards the American way of life. Just look at all the students and rich ppl flocking to study and live in the US. In fact, the avg person in China very much aspires to have the US way of life (consumer / material oriented, but of course this is not all of American life). The young love Nike, Apple, NBA etc.

WAPO is reporting that Wuhan deaths were likely more than 40,000. Had China not lied, tens of thousands would have survived elsewhere.

China is FINISHED as a credible international player, except as a friend to the poorest and most desperate regimes. Chinese citizens need to overthrow their murderous, psychopathic, sociopathic regime. Dark days ahead for CHINA.

First, the rest of the world would be complete fools to trust China's "help"--their notion of "moral" is "whatever's in China's interests." Throughout this affair, China's actions have been singularly irresponsible and self-serving and there's no reason to think that they're going to be any more responsible or any less self-serving in the future.

As to "leadership," China doesn't want to "lead," China wants to dominate. China wants to "lead" in much the same way Napoleon and Hitler wanted to "lead"--by force.

We, the rest of the world, don't need China's "help," we need them to just go away. If the Chinese Communist Party want to lead-by-force their own country, it's entirely up to the Chinese people whether to go on tolerating it--though the people of Hong Kong seem not to be so tolerant. But the rest of the world needn't, and shouldn't, tolerate China's efforts to impose their "leadership" on us.

While there's a lot of interesting ideas here, it really seems to ignore the elephant in the room. This virus originated in China and they have hidden so much about the virus and its impact. Had either they not had "wet markets" and had their people not been allowed to do things like eating bats or alternatively had they not been experimenting with biochemical warfare at their level IV research facility in Wuhan, the world would not have had to cope with enormous numbers of deaths and had to shut down the global economy. When this is all over, the world will harbor an incredible amount of anger -- raw and growing anger -- at China. Many are already angry and this anger will only grow through time. It is absolutely inevitable. This was all China's fault. They are completely to blame. This is certainly not a moment for any sort of Chinese "leadership". This is a time for China to beg for the world's forgiveness and to do whatever the world asks. Which they won;t do. So, no one is going to buy anything from China for decades. No one is going to build a factory in China for decades. China is most likely to become more aggressive militarily and jeopardize world peace. No one is going to allow their continued military expansion in the China Sea. They have not only sown the seeds of an economic disaster in China, but the seeds for military with the rest of the world.

"If there is one lesson that China should share with the world, it is that speed, transparency, accuracy, and scientific reliability are of the utmost importance when communicating about the COVID-19 crisis.... China should quietly win trust by helping the US and other countries, not out of strategic interest, but on moral grounds."

Sorry Ms. Jin, but this is a fantasy; China's initial cover-up of the virus from December - January was the product of a political system that has lies baked into its foundations, going back to lies about the early history of the CCP, lies about the CCP's exaggerated contributions in the War of Resistance against Japan (WW2), and so many more since then, such as the man-made mass famine of the Great Leap Forward, and so many crimes against humanity. This lengthy record of deceit is the core reason for the closed information environment of the country. There's no possibility for reforming this - Gorbachev tried through Glasnost, and the USSR collapsed within a few years.

COVID-19 is a turning point in world history. Only fools would trust the CCP or attribute moral values to them from here on out. The CCP's model of attracting foreign investment and trade since 1979 is definitively coming to an end. I understand you love your homeland, and the great cultural traditions of Chinese civilization. But your country is run by a criminal regime, that will continue to drag the reputation (and fortunes, and lives) of the Chinese people deeper into the abyss. The push-back from the West is only beginning; you'd do well to choose the correct side.

Things will never be the same. The World cried with China and sought to help send international infectious disease experts to help with the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid 19) outbreak. The CCP refused and destroyed samples, demolished the wet market in question, and persecuted the doctors who tried to warn China's citizens and the World. There are statements by CCP authorities that cause alarm that this was an accident, a rogue act, or deliberate contamination that originated from the level 2 lab in Wuhan or the level 4 lab on the outskirts. Even worse are the rumors that rampant organ harvesting from religious and political prisoners occurred.Many countries are complaining about failures with 80% of the medical equipment China has supplied to several countries.The American people have realized that China has monopolized the production of many essentials. There will be concerted efforts to rebuild American industry, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and other areas of production in a new spirit of American Independence.There is a growing food shortage throughout the World and America's farmers may well have to provide for China and other countries beset by locusts, bad weather, and insufficient planting because of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.It appears that rapid tests, viable treatments, and possible vaccines will be readily available soon to counter the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic akthough the losses in people and economic vitality will be great. America will rebuild, but the economic and political relationship with China will never be the same as before the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

China has a serious credibility problem. It sent defective tests to Spain and Italy. No one believes its reporting of Coronavirus cases. And it disposed of early whistleblowers who were trying to give the world a warning about the virus. No, this is not leadership. Not even close.

I appreciate your position as a foreign affairs expert. As many have said, this epidemic has changed the world. Things will never be the same. And China will never be trusted as a good faith nation. The wonderful Chinese people are led by a vicious, self serving, evil bunch of Communist autocrats. They are the enemy of the free world. Actions speak louder than words.

" Instead of congratulating itself on having pushed back COVID-19, China should quietly win trust by helping the United States and other countries, not out of strategic interest, but on moral grounds."

The first sentence, and it stopped me in my tracks.

"Congratulating itself for having pushed back COVID-19"?!? Seriously? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe the very low numbers of reported infections and deaths in China?!?

Then you go on to mention trust and morality? Like the Chinese have any of either to offer? This infection came from China, and it was made very much worse by the lying Chinese communist government. They lied, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and hundreds of millions of jobs destroyed. And now you want to talk about what an opportunity it is for China?!?

So COVID-19 is revenge for something that happened nearly two centuries ago? And in which, by the way, America had no involvement. If that is indeed the case, if China's collective memory is indeed that long and vindictive, that's even more reason the rest of the world shouldn't trust them.

Unbelievable. China inflicts death 💀 And economic devastation on the world by known filthy disease ridden practices, followed by lied & deception, & now the propaganda begins that we shouldn’t be upset w China, or decouple our over-reliance but rather smile & increase our dependence on a the source of all death & misery. The world should take a hard look at what China has caused & take steps to be sure China can’t do it again.

While the Us is hardlly perfect-but China has to stop lying to get anywhere. Stonwalled, lied to word community for weeks, WHO is their parrot. Do you really believe they had no new organic cases? Does anyone really believe the case and death count? If so, why are there dozens of portable incinerators in Wuhan? Also, not sending defective defective test kits would help (like 80%).

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Mass protests over racial injustice, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a sharp economic downturn have plunged the United States into its deepest crisis in decades. Will the public embrace radical, systemic reforms, or will the specter of civil disorder provoke a conservative backlash?

For democratic countries like the United States, the COVID-19 crisis has opened up four possible political and socioeconomic trajectories. But only one path forward leads to a destination that most people would want to reach.

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